Reply by Dallas

Good points Loren.Although I was in the building trades many years ago, and my dad tried to teach me custom cabinet work and custom wood work decades ago, I have just recently returned to wood working as a method to enhance my meager income.I haven’t found my niche` yet, although I’ve gotten a few commissions for small items such as cutting boards, portable writing desks, worry boxes etc. I find myself torn between wanting to do the custom furniture stuff like the portable writing desks and boxes because they are easier for me to visualize in my mind than cutting boards and band saw boxes and toys.

My preference would be to sell this stuff online rather than at craft fairs or flea markets, but it seems that getting the name out online is a slow process unless you use something like Etsy, which isn’t high on my list.

Rereading this, I see I’ve rambled somewhat. I know what I want to say but I don’t know how to say it. The bottom line seems to be that I’ll have to do what the market or the demographics require rather than what I want to do. If I were in good physical shape, I’d probably go back in to custom interiors in houses. As it is, I pick up work rebuilding/repairing interiors in RV’s because I manage a campground. The problem with RV work is that the normal customer doesn’t want to pay for decent material, they also want it to look like the cookie cutter particle board crap that came in it in the first place….. highly unsatisfying to me, if for no other reason than it’s hard to take pride in something you know is going to be torn up or fall apart within the next five years because of the movement of the frame the piece is connected to.